Course: Information Architecture
Tools: Paper, Balsamiq, TreeJack, ChalkMark
Role: Information Architect
Problem
The Upper Sandusky Community library director would like the library’s website to be redesigned from the bottom up. This can be accomplished by designing a new information architecture (IA) for the website. Information Architecture focuses on organizing, structuring, and labeling content in an effective and sustainable way. The goal of any IA is to help users find information and complete tasks. The new IA will will meet and answer the following goals and concerns of the library’s website:
- Patrons will find it less daunting to find Information.
- The information will be organized better.
- Patrons will able to find exactly what they are looking for.
- The redesigned website will be easy for existing staff to maintain.
Actions
Over the course of six weeks, user research was conducted, a new Information architecture was designed, the new IA was evaluated, and the finalized IA and design decisions were delivered. In week one and two, participant recruitment & interviews was conducted with people who have knowledge of municipal library users to learn what library users tend to do and what they want to do. In week three, the information and data gathered from the user research was used to create the information architecture for the site’s redesign. Which includes content analysis, development of a classification scheme, and the creation of a site map. In week four, a taxonomy design assessment was conducted to evaluate the new IA. In week five and six. testing was continued with a navigation assessment. Finally, all of the information and data gathered from the assessments was used to improve and finalize the new Information architecture and design decisions.
Results
Below are a few screenshots of the deliverables created. To see the the entire set of deliverables as well as result from the user research, please see the full report.
